Omaha Public Library has nearly 30 book clubs, including a brand-new horror book club at Swanson Branch, and you can start your own with a book club bag. Courtni Kopietz, marketing manager for Omaha Public Library, explains how they work, previews Haunting Tales and Human Remains with forensic anthropologist Dr. Katie East, and picks Fruit Fly by Josh Silver.
Join a book club, or start your own
OPL’s book clubs meet across the system, led by library staff. Some read one book together; others pick a monthly theme and everyone brings whatever they read. See the book club calendar.
Want to host your own? A book club bag holds multiple copies of the same book, plus discussion questions and information about the author, and the whole bag counts as one item on your card. Put one on hold to be sent to your branch, or filter the catalog to see what’s available now. Browse book club bags.
Haunting Tales and Human Remains
Forensic anthropologist Dr. Katie East on how legends of vampires, zombies and mummies grew out of the science of death and decomposition. The last event in the series: Tuesday, Nov. 10, at 6 p.m. at the Bess Johnson Elkhorn Branch. For ages 19 and up. Registration is requested, so contact the branch to save your spot.
This week’s book
Fruit Fly by Josh Silver. A novelist in a slump takes “write what you know” way too far, working her way into a stranger’s life under false pretenses to use his story. You get chapters from both of them. It’s new this year and in demand, so get on the hold list. Find it at Omaha Public Library.
Links from this episode
- Book clubs at Omaha Public Library
- Book club calendar
- Book club bags in the catalog
- Bess Johnson Elkhorn Branch
- Everything happening at the library
- Fruit Fly at Omaha Public Library
Off the Shelf airs Mondays at 8:44 a.m. and 4:44 p.m. on KIOS 91.5, Omaha Public Radio. More episodes and every book we’ve picked.
Transcript
Transcribed automatically and lightly corrected.
[0:00] Topher Booth: In 1727, Benjamin Franklin started a club of friends to argue about books. It helped start one of America’s very first lending libraries. Every book club since has had the same people. The one who brought notes, the one who read the back cover in the parking lot, and the one who skipped the book but made the dip. And Franklin, he’s going around signing everybody’s copy. Declaration, Constitution, your paperback, he cannot help himself. I’m Topher Booth, and this is Off the Shelf. Courtni Kopietz from Omaha Public Library is back with book clubs and how to start your own, a night of vampires and forensic science, and a novelist who takes write what you know way too far.
[0:43] Courtni Kopietz: We have nearly 30 book clubs across the system right now, and we just launched two new ones, including a horror book club over at Swanson Branch. So it’s good timing for that this fall. But also a resource that people don’t always know about is that we have book club bags. If you want to host your own book club, you can check out a bag with multiple copies of the same book and discussion questions and information about the author and everything you might need to host your own event. And that is considered a single checkout item. So we have a 40-item limit at Omaha Public Library for your card. A book club bag is considered one. I just encourage folks to search the catalog online to see what’s available and what’s available now. So you can put holds on these bags like you do any other book or item in our collection, but you can also just filter your search and see what’s available now for pickup. You can put those on hold to be sent to your preferred branch or go to the branch that currently houses them and pick one up for your club. So I like that there’s a few different ways folks can experience book club. There’s the version where, like I said, a theme. So read whatever you’re interested in, but within a theme, it’s more about the act of coming together and talking about what you’re reading and what you pulled from it. A focus book, so something specific, so we’re all reading the same thing. You can join one that’s already going on. Folks can find those on the website, and they’re all led by OPL staff. If they’re on our library calendar, the discussions are led by staff.
[2:07] Topher Booth: Okay, got it. What is coming up here at Omaha Public Library that you would like to talk about?
[2:12] Courtni Kopietz: So today I wanted to talk about this guest speaker we have coming in, a forensic anthropologist. The event is called Haunting Tales and Human Remains. So even though we’re past Halloween now, spooky season continues. Dr. Katie East will be here to talk about basically legends and their origins in the science of death and decomposition, and basically the mysteries of death and decomposition for so many years and how they may have contributed to this storytelling, especially vampires, zombies, mummification and mummies, all of those sorts of things. So she’s a fantastic science communicator, like practicing forensic anthropologist, but also a science communicator. And she’s done lots of other events with the library before, but the series I’m especially excited for. This will be at the Bess Johnson Elkhorn Branch on Tuesday, November 10th at 6 p.m. in the evening. So registration is requested for this, so you can get in touch with the branch to save your spot. And we’ve hosted a couple of these already, but this is sort of culminating the series with Katie this season, at least.
[3:18] Topher Booth: Tell me a little bit about that. You said this is a culmination of a series. What’s the series been up to this point?
[3:22] Courtni Kopietz: They’ve all been the Haunting Tales and Human Remains events. So we’ve had them at a couple of our locations, and this is the final one. The book I want to talk about today is called Fruit Fly by Josh Silver. And it’s basically about this writer who had a big hit, but has sort of had a lull in her career, and to think about her next big thing, she has really taken it to heart that you need to write what you know. And you don’t necessarily need to be an expert in the thing, but if you can base a book on your own experiences, great. But the thing she wants to write about is not something she’s experienced at all, as a woman living in the suburbs, kind of isolated from society for a bit. And she launches into this world, essentially, of an addicted gay man who is just trying to survive day to day. But she starts to infiltrate and almost appropriate his life for storytelling purposes. And it’s a really interesting way. Instead of, I don’t know, a lot of folks, when they’re writing books and they’re not the expert in their field, they can reach out to the expert to gain that knowledge. And she could have been like, well, tell me about yourself. But instead, she’s sort of... secretly works her way, worms her way into his life under false pretenses.
[4:38] Topher Booth: So just the story of this unraveling, probably, I’m assuming.
[4:42] Courtni Kopietz: Yes, you can see a very tangled web, and then what happens next.
[4:47] Topher Booth: And the lies of why you’re having this relationship, but yeah.
[4:51] Courtni Kopietz: It’s really fascinating. And I feel like I can’t say more without spoiling it. But I do want to say you get chapters from both her perspective and his perspective, and that’s a really fascinating way to tell the story.
[5:05] Topher Booth: You had said that you read a book and then you told me that you listened to it. So are you of the opinion that listening still counts?
[5:12] Courtni Kopietz: Oh, absolutely. And you, well, everyone here at the library will endorse that. I mean, everybody learns and intakes information in different ways, but we know, like the science says, it’s about encoding that information, however you intake it. And so reading it physically with your eyeballs and listening with your ears, if you are intaking that story and processing it, it is all reading to us.
[5:40] Topher Booth: That’s Off the Shelf. Haunting Tales and Human Remains is Tuesday at 6 at the Bess Johnson Elkhorn Branch, ages 19 and up. Book club bags, this week’s book and everything else at KIOS.org. Bring notes. Or dip. New every Monday on KIOS, Omaha Public Radio.
